By MARK MOLINA | STAFF WRITER
Once Pace coach Jose Luis Ramirez finished up the boy’s basketball season, he immediately turned his attention to the track and field team as the interim head coach.
Since then, meshing together has been a slow and steady process for the Vikings, but Ramirez believes his team is ready to turn the corner as competitors.
“ The kids have been really excited about going out to compete,” Ramirez said. “An indicator of that has been this Spring Break week. We usually lose a lot of kids because they go out of town or they are at spring break and it’s hard to come out to run. We’ve had a good showing the last three days as far as practice goes. It seems to me that the kids have bought in and are looking forward to competing; those are good things to see.”
The Vikings’ latest showing before the break was a solid one, finishing Saturday’s Brownsville City Meet this past Saturday in third place with 106 points.
The day was highlighted by a pair of second-place individual finishes from Javier Bermudez in the 400-meter dash (51.53 seconds) and Jose Quintero in the discus throw (145 feet, 8 inches). Hector Salazar also took bronze in the long jump (20-01).
Pace also finished second in the 400-meter relay, third in the 800 relay and fourth in the mile relay.
Ramirez said the relay teams have the most potential, especially in the 400, where a small hiccup may have kept them from gold this past weekend.
“ Our sprint relays are one of strengths,” he said. “We had a bad handoff on the last exchange and that’s kind of what cost us because we were sitting pretty in first at that point. We came in a half second short of first. Our mile relay is also pretty strong. It’s all about working on chemistry right now. We have some kids nursing some injuries right now, but that’s how track is. We’re just waiting for that time when they’re all healthy.”
HAPPY ‘HOUNDS
The San Benito Greyhound boy’s track and field team has a lot to be happy about heading into their spring break sporting a pair of meet wins.
The Greyhounds are coming off a victory at the Jim Hudson Relays in La Feria, where they topped the boy’s standing with 130 points.
San Benito head coach Benny Ellison said his team’s performance in strong wasn’t as strong as he would have hoped, but he’ll take the win.
“ It’s always good to win a meet no matter where it is,” San Benito head coach Benny Ellison said. “La Feria was a strong meet; coach (Everardo) Sanchez does a good job of getting some good teams there. The times were not great times, but the wind was ridiculous. We did have some good time running with the wind like the 100-meter dash and the hurdles, so we scored well and had good times. We’re hoping we can carry success into district.”
San Benito also won the Port Isabel Invitational back on Feb. 22 with 96 points.
The meet wins are good for the confidence, but the goal for the ‘Hounds is to get the most out of their legs as they head into a lengthy break to rest up before coming back on March 22 for the Meet of Champions in McAllen, followed by the PSJA Invitational and the District 32-6A meet in consecutive weeks.
“ We were running pretty hard up until spring break,” the San Benito coach said. “We’re trying to get a good solid base before we come back and have to go to the next three meets, which are huge. We want to make sure we have a good base. We basically, I guess you can say, run them into the dirt. We run them hard up until that time. Once spring break is over we come back, knock the rust off and get their legs back under them.”
At the La Feria meet, the ‘Hounds were led by gold-medal wins from Joaquin Media, Imanol Benavidez and Mitch Guajardo.
Medina won gold in the 3200-meter run (10 minutes, 9.7 seconds) and the 1600-meter run ( 4:40.03); Benavidez won the 100-meter dash (10.94) and Mitch Guajardo claimed victory in the pole vault after clearing 13 feet.
MORE NOTABLES
Other teams picking up meet wins were the Harlingen High boys and the Los Fresnos Lady Falcons.
The Harlingen High boys won the Jimmy Platt Classic with 165 points. The Cards were led several gold medal winners. Jose Garcia won the 100-meter dash (10.68) and the long jump (21-4.75). Pedro Luna won the 200-meter dash, Cole Swinnea won the 400-meter run (51.26) and Caden Feeks won the high jump (6-5).
The Cardinals also won the 400-meter and mile relays.
The Lady Falcons won the girls’ division at the Jim Hudson relays with 156 points.
Luisa Cruz won gold in the 200-meter dash (27.07); Brianna Alex won the 100 hurdles (14.44) and Ashley Muniz won the discus throw (114-10).
Los Fresnos also won all three relays.